Kartoffel-Blitz!

The German word blitz has a lot of different meanings. What exactly is a potato blitz? Is it some sort of food? Are they going to be falling from the sky?

Well, you don’t have to worry about getting a helmet. And on the bright side, it will involve eating – but I’ll get to that in a little bit. For us at House of Friendship, blitz means a short, focused effort. As you may already know, the Potato Blitz is a one month push to collect as many potatoes as we can so that we can share with the people who turn to us for help. With me so far?

In just 15 days (between Don Cameron Potato Night and this last Saturday) many, many people have stepped up, pitched in and shared a gift with us: a gift of potatoes, some kind words of support and a lot of smiles!

I’ve written about Don Cameron Potato Night already. Last Saturday, it was the second major blitz event, House of Friendship’s annual Supermarket Blitz. The Supermarket Blitz is a one day community wide effort, where volunteers, staff, friends and family visit local grocery stores and ask their neighbours for some potatoes to help the less fortunate members of our community. What a day!

In the space of a few hours we received over 22 skids of potatoes from shoppers at 26 different stores across the region! When combined with the financial donations that were made as well, we collected the equivalent of 102,000 pounds of potatoes! When we add that to the donations we accepted at Don Cameron Potato night we are only 12,000 pounds away from our goal of 200,000 pound goal.

House of Friendship staff and volunteers take a break in front of some of the 22 skids that were collected during the annual Supermarket Blitz

What’s left now? We are always accepting donations of more potatoes and other food items. More info on how you can help here. Every single spud will make a difference to the people we serve, who, are coming to us in record numbers. This last January was the busiest month in the history of the emergency food hamper program, with 3491 hampers going out our doors to fill empty kitchen cupboards in Kitchener and Waterloo.

Each potato and dollar that is donated this month will help us put food on families tables for most of the coming year. Thanks to Jay West, a local food retailer in St. Jacobs, we will be able to store the spuds in the right conditions so they are still perfect when we need them in the coming months.

Are you planning on attending the community potato lunch next Friday? It will be between 12 and 1pm, Friday February 24th at St. Andrews Presbyterian Church in Kitchener. Last years lunch (post here) was a huge success and you can look forward to more great company, and the second (critically acclaimed) soup idol contest where local’s try and win the favour of the judges with their best potato soup recipe. This year we expect some serious competition. (Do you think your soup recipe is a winner? We’re still looking for people to compete – you can contact Jenn at 519-742-8327 for more info.)